22 S/J^ THOMAS MUNRO
Tanjore but the capital. We must, however, suppose he had good reasons for remaining there. If it was not the smallness of his force, it might have been with a view to keep Haidar to the southward, and to draw his attention from the reinforcement which was then coming from Bengal.
' The General moved in the end of May to raise the siege of Thiagur. He reached Tirivadi the ist of March [1781], from whence Mir Sahib retreated on his appearance ; here he halted two days, and then returned to his old camp at Cuddalore. I cannot account for this conduct, unless by supposing that from Baillie's defeat he conceived too high an opinion of Haidar's army, and relied too little on his own, or that he did not think the place of sufficient conse- quence to risk a general engagement to prevent its fall, and that he only moved to divert the enemy and protract the siege.
'The Bengal troops having by this time entered the Karnatik, the General, to hinder Haidar from striking any blow against them, marched to the southward on the 16th June, and two days after arrived at Chilambaram, a fortified pagoda, thirty miles south-west of Cuddalore. Adjoining to the pagoda there is a large pettah, surrounded by a mud wall; the garrison were between two and three thousand poligars. In the evening the General sent three battalions to attack the pettah ; the enemy, after a scattered fire, ran to shelter themselves in the pagoda. By some mistake, without orders, the
